This invention relates to the loading of motor vehicles into standard cargo-carrying enclosures, such as containers or vans, for transport therein. More particularly, the invention relates to the loading of such motor vehicles into such enclosures in multiple columns of vertically-spaced vehicles arranged substantially end-to-end relative to one another.
It has been common to transport motor vehicles, such as passenger cars and small trucks, in vertically-spaced groups or columns arranged substantially end-to-end. For example, conventional open highway trailers such as those shown in Baker U.S. Pat. No. 2,492,829 or British Patent No. 1,006,496 have frames with vertically-adjustable vehicle support assemblies onto which the vehicles are driven and then raised to elevated positions by hydraulic jacks integrally mounted on the trailer frame. Alternatively, enclosures such as highway vans and rail cars have been equipped with integral vehicle-support assemblies within the enclosure for supporting vehicles in vertically-spaced groups such as shown, for example, in Hice U.S. Pat. No. 2,016,430, Linquist et al. U.S. Pat. No. 1,247,553, Gutridge U.S. Pat. No. 3,498,480, Canadian Pat. No. 961,699 and French Patent No. 1,202,387.
The problems with all such structures are primarily twofold. First, vehicle-carrying structures having integral vehicle-support assemblies are not readily adaptable to transport goods other than vehicles and therefore cannot be efficiently utilized for the transport of other cargo on return trips after the delivery of the vehicles. Second, in enclosing structures having integral vehicle supports therein, it is most difficult to arrange the vehicles compactly within the enclosure because room is needed inside the enclosure for workmen to maneuver so as to properly secure the vehicles in vertically-spaced relationships. When this difficulty is avoided by dispensing with the enclosure, as in the conventional vehicle highway trailers, the lack of an enclosure exposes the vehicles to weather and road hazards and thus to damage.
Partly in answer to the foregoing problems, enclosed vehicle-transporting vans as shown in Smith U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,455,119 and 4,597,712, respectively, have been developed. However the continuing requirement that each van have its own integal vehicle-supporting structure makes each van inordinately expensive. Moreover the further continuing requirement, that the positioning of the vehicles in vertically-spaced relation to each other take place inside the van, perpetuates the difficulty of securing each vehicle within a relatively inaccesesible space.
What is needed, therefore, is an economical system for loading motor vehicles in vertically-spaced relation to each other within an enclosure for transport therein which does not require the enclosure to have any special integral vehicle-supporting structure, so that both its cost and its obstructions to the handling of other types of cargo are minimized, and which does not require any individual positioning or securing of the vehicles while in the enclosure.